Ritter: Courthouse vote represents failure of public trust

A sterling new courtroom is one thing, but the court of public opinion is something else entirely. Franklin County leaders just learned that brutal lesson again.
The quagmire into which voters tossed last week's proposed sales tax to finance a new courthouse ended up swallowing a bevy of other similar proposals across Southern Illinois -- a clear statement from a public "taxed enough already," as the Tea Party folks would have it. In Randolph County, a public safety sales tax failed by a margin not unlike what Franklin County saw. Ditto for a similar public safety tax in St. Clair County, where voters further rejected a school sales tax. Madison County voters shot down their own school sales tax vote.
In some places, such tax hikes succeeded, such as in a small school district in Pinckneyville. By and large, however, the message seemed clear.
"Folks are fed up," Andrew Nelms with the conservative PAC Americans for Prosperity told the similarly right-leaning Illinois News Network. "Everywhere they turn local government is asking for more."
It's just the sort of populist fury that in part granted Donald Trump the presidency, but local leaders would be woefully misguided to blame such ballot failures merely on anti-tax zeal.
The deeper failure rests with what partly feeds that sentiment: a widespread perception, fair or not, that the government works at aims opposite those of its constituents, often foolishly or even corruptly. Voters might be able to spend the money, but not to fund what seems like a loosely calculated spending spree. There's just no trust anymore.
"A lot of people have a mentality that is very against government spending," Franklin County Board member Tom Vaughn said the day after the vote. "But this was the game. We really thought this was the best approach. I don't think there is another plan."
Problem is, voters questioned the alleged holes in the county's so-called plan for weeks. Without even a public hint of where the $20 million courthouse would be located, leaders pitched it as an economic development tool -- a curious argument at best. Also, officials failed to counter concerns from sellers of big-ticket items concerned with how such a tax would impact their sales. Other communities have made concessions to such retailers in their own tax initiatives. Franklin County didn't.
More than anything else, the current courthouse -- poorly maintained, crumbling at the seams -- may have been a monument to the perceived shortcomings of the county's leadership dating back decades. Perhaps their lack of planning is why we can't have nice things. Perhaps giving them more is simply throwing good money after bad.
Not all of these criticisms may be fair, but make no doubt they were voiced. Repeatedly.
Nobody likes taxes, but this referendum's failure speaks to deeper fissures in the public trust. That's just how it is. The new courthouse may be dead for now, but the court of public opinion remains in session for some time to come. Its judgment can be severe.